381. Q&A: What is body doubling and how can it help my child with ADHD focus?

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello, Dr. Emily Upshur. Welcome back.

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:47):

Hey.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:48):

How are you?

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:49):

I’m so good today.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:50):

Oh, I’m so glad you’re so good. Okay. I wanted to do something a little different today for our Beyond the Sessions segment of the Securely Attached podcast. So, because you know we normally answer listener questions, if you’re aware, that’s what we do.

Dr. Emily Upshur (01:05):

Thanks. Thanks for letting me know.

Dr. Sarah Bren (01:08):

Okay. So instead of answering a listener question, I wanted to chat with you about a strategy that came up recently in one of my therapy sessions that I realized we have not talked about on the podcast, but I think it could be something that’s really helpful for kids and parents.

Dr. Emily Upshur (01:24):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (01:25):

Okay. Well, if you’re a listener of the podcast, you know that Emily and I, we have group practice together, Upshurbrent Psychology Group, and we work with adults, children, and parents. And so that’s why this is particularly relevant for me to bring this up with Emily. But I was working with a particular family recently and their son has ADHD. And in our session, his parents were telling me how hard it is for him to get started on tasks, like homework, getting dressed, even things he actually wants to do but can’t organize around and just how much conflict it was creating at home. And so I was bringing up with them a technique that’s often referred to as body dumbling. And I was like, huh, they’d never heard of it. And I feel like it’s kind of, I don’t know, a lot of people do know what it is, but I don’t know how many people do.

(02:18):

And I thought it would be an interesting thing to talk about on the podcast. So I wanted us to focus today on explaining about body doubling, like what it is, why it works, and how parents can use it intentionally in a way that supports independence over time. So why don’t we kick it off? Do you want to start it by explaining what body doubling is?

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:42):

Yeah. I mean, I think probably parents are doing this all the time and they’re like, “Ugh, why do I have to sit with my kid while they’re doing stuff?” But it is truly body doubling is it’s a technique that says when you’re in the presence of another person, it can boost your focus, your motivation, even your sort of accountability and the ability to stave off procrastination or distraction. And just that external other person with you is the productivity tool in and of itself. So it’s funny because when you were explaining this to parents, I often explain this to parents as it’s not that they can’t do it independently, but this is a technique to make it a lot smoother and more efficient. And it really does help the kids be grounded in what they’re trying to accomplish, which is really the goal. If you’re saying, “Okay, go do your homework and you check on them and they have not done their homework, but they have reorganized their room or found a toy.” Or disorganized their room.

(03:50):

Yeah. So it’s funny, the most common way this comes up for me is parents are either saying, “I can’t do that. We fight too much, so it’s not effective.” And I’ll say, “Well, maybe it’s just a different body doubler person.” And we use that strategy a lot. If you have the capacity and you’re able to have a tutor or like a high school kid that has a little less familiarity than a parent, that hanging out, like studying at the same time with that kid, even if it’s not a formal tutor, can be immensely helpful. And that is…

Dr. Sarah Bren (04:29):

Sort of holding the frame. They’re not doing, like tutoring would be like there’s an hour and the tutor is going to work on something specific with the kid and help them learn or practice a specific skill. There’s work around that happening now. Whereas a body doubler or a homework buddy, whatever, would be sitting there with them. They’re not really helping them do the work. They’re just doing their own work because it’s homework time.

Dr. Emily Upshur (04:55):

Yeah, it’s kind of like a lower lift is what I say. It’s remarkable. The thing that’s very cool about body doubling is it doesn’t require interaction with the other person. Their mere presence increases productivity and ability to focus, right? So it’s almost like when I don’t want to clean out my closet, but I have my best friend come over and sit in my room while I do it, I’m more likely to get it done, right? They don’t even need to help me at all. They’re just hanging out on this task I don’t want to do, which is keeping me focused. I still am doing the task. So it’s the mere presence. And I think that’s really…

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:35):

We talk about frame a lot in therapy because that might not be a concept that people who aren’t therapists obviously know what I mean when I say it holds the frame.

Dr. Emily Upshur (05:43):

Frame.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:44):

But in therapy, we talk a lot about the frame of therapy, which is like the session has this container around it. And we think a lot about what fits inside that and how that frame, that unconscious awareness that there is a boundary around this space changes the feeling of that space or the content of the conversation that’s happening in that space. And the same thing is true for that. I basically, a body double draws a line around this time and says, “This time is protected and it’s sort of for this purpose.” It’s anchoring and grounding and orienting. Like you were saying, even with a friend in the closet reorganization, their presence sitting in your room creates this frame around this space. So it’s like if that person wasn’t there, I mean, I’ve done this a million times, I start working on my closet.

(06:40):

And then I get another idea and I’m like, “Oh, I got to go do this thing really quick.” And then I leave and then I forget that I’ve started this project because I have ADHD. This is how it actually plays out. That’s why my house can sometimes look like a tornado because I start one project and then I get another idea which moved me over here and I start that project and I forget about the other one. But having a person sitting in that room being like, “Oh no, even if they’re known enough to say to you, where are you going? ” Just like they’re there. And so when I have the thought, “Oh, I left something downstairs, I got to go grab it. ” Either the presence of my friend in my room reminds me, “Well, okay, but I’m doing this right now.” Or at the very least, if I go downstairs to go get the thing I forgot, I remember to go back up because there’s a person in there waiting for me.

Dr. Emily Upshur (07:31):

I love describing it as a frame because I like the sort of like invisible boundary that keeps you on the task. I love that image because I think a lot of parents might say, “Oh, but I can’t sit with my kid for an older kid for hours of homework or something like that. ” And one thing I always recommend to parents though is you can sort of take a step, you might start with sitting with them, you might start there, but I perk my kid in the dining room, which is open to my kitchen. So I still have this invisible boundary all the way to me in the kitchen because I can still see my kid and that helps them, even though I’m not sitting right with them, stay in that invisible boundary line that you’re sort of talking about. And so you can work your way up to that potentially.

(08:20):

And I think that can be real helpful. And the other thing that I just wanted to say while you were describing that is, listen, this is a phenomenon, not just for kids with ADHD. Why do you think libraries are made? It’s like where people go to stay in the task, to try to stay in the task. And so I think you just have to be a bit more intentional if you know that your child has ADHD or you yourself have ADHD about setting yourself up with a frame for success.

(08:47):

Whether that’s getting a one-on-one double, whether that’s going to a library, you just want to make sure that there’s some boundary that’s helping you with that accountability and focus. And I don’t want parents to be intimidated by that. Like we said, it doesn’t have to be sort of…

Dr. Sarah Bren (09:06):

You’re now glued to your kid for the rest of time.

Dr. Emily Upshur (09:08):

Yeah. Or you have to hire some expensive tutor, anything like that. This could literally be a sibling if that works for your family. My kids now are actually at an age where my older one is quite studious and studies a lot. So my middle one will be like, “Fine, I guess I’ll sit here and do work with this other kid.” Even though they can’t always do that, I’d want to be really cautious about it, but it’s still like a collective mind of sort of working in that frame.

Dr. Sarah Bren (09:32):

Right. And taking this idea of like, okay, so if we’re thinking of the body double as one form of a frame, what else could we use as a frame, right? It doesn’t always have to be a physical body double to get the function, right? So it could be that there is a frame around a time. So maybe it’s like from five to six every evening, we start by again body doubling, but like I sit down at the table with you and that time becomes the frame. And I might physically be here initially to create the frame, but eventually I can allow just the time to become the frame and I exit more and more and more. So it’s like, no, and I just know my kid just knows from five to six, this is homework time.

(10:19):

Or on Sunday, I don’t know, maybe Sunday after dinner, we set a timer and we do like a house sweep. Everyone go and run around, and this is good for like younger kids, right? But like everyone go around and find five things that doesn’t live in its home and bring it to me here and we’ll go organize the house or little things like there’s a … I’m trying to think of the things that happen in my family where like this is our disorganization Achilles heel, but like backpack, unpacking and packing. And like when we get home from school, if we don’t open up the backpacks, pull out the homework folder, pull out the old lunch boxes, I will find a stinky blunt box from like four days ago, I will…

Dr. Emily Upshur (11:12):

What you’re talking about is so important, right? It’s like creating systems and with ADHD, the systems don’t necessarily live inside of your head the whole time. You might have to create these external systems. Body doubling is one of those systems. Parking spaces for your backpacks is another routines is a really great one. And I do want to say like…

Dr. Sarah Bren (11:35):

Visual calendars or visual flow chart.

Dr. Emily Upshur (11:37):

Love that. So I will say like, I want to send a cautionary, not negatively forecasting, but it can be hard for kids with ADHD to get that rhythm down. And I would just encourage parents to have patience with that and just keep at it. Because like I know with my child with ADHD, I have to be a dog with a bone. Nope, on Mondays, this is what we do, this is what we do. And eventually it takes time, but it does really stick in. So I don’t want you to be discouraged if you’re like, now we’re doing body doubling for an hour and it’s like messy, right? Clunky. It takes a while to initiate and develop these systems and the consistency is really the thing that sort of seals that deal. And I just want to put that out there so parents don’t get too easily dissuaded in the beginning stages of these things.

Dr. Sarah Bren (12:30):

And you can use body double. I think the more routine you can have around it is super helpful because again, you’re getting a twofer, you’re creating a, the body double serves as a frame, but then the consistency, the repeated, it becomes the schedule actually also starts to become part of the frame that queues up that same, “Okay, now I know what we’re doing. Now this is time for this. ” And it helps contain a kid inside of a focused activity that’s harder to get them to stay organized inside of. But it can also be one-offs. It can be like, like you were saying, you’re going to clean your closet like a big closet redo once in a while and so you get a friend for that. Or if your kid has a big thing, like big project due, like maybe find a friend in the class who’s also working on a project and invite them over for like a hangout where we’re going to have a snack and we’re going to work on your projects. They don’t even have to be doing the same thing, but it’s like, go for a friend that has more executive functioning skills perhaps. I feel like I did this a lot when I was little. I would do Spanish homework on the phone with a friend.

Dr. Emily Upshur (13:42):

Well, so I want to like label what you’re doing a little bit. Obviously you know this, but I’m going to point out that like when you have ADHD, doing things that are less desirable can be hard, right? So you were doing this like beautiful thing of like, “Oh, I’m going to pair that with something I like, like talking to a friend.” And so these one-off discreet events that you’re noting are really important because they can be harder to motivate around, right? If you have a kid or yourself with ADHD and you’re like, really don’t want to clean your closet, you really don’t want to do your Spanish homework, creating that buddying might be extra important in those novel events where you’re trying to stretch yourself to do something that you’re not, maybe that’s not your favorite thing and that’s harder for kids with ADHD.

Dr. Sarah Bren (14:27):

Yeah. And Emily, you brought this up earlier, but I think this is really important. You do not need to go buy or hire a dot body double. And you also yourself do not have to do 100% of this either.

Dr. Emily Upshur (14:38):

That’s right.

Dr. Sarah Bren (14:38):

I think for really little kids, it’s going to be a bigger role for the parent to play because you’re just, these are little things, day to day life skills that we’re trying to body double. And so we’re just around more for that. But as your kid gets older and like we’re looking more at like academic stuff, like there’s so many resources, like encouraging your kid to go to like some schools have like before school starts like homework help, like that’s body doubling. Some, like they’ll have like a study hour, different schools call it different things, but like a resource lab, that’s body doubling. And even if you invite friends over, encourage your kid to invite a friend over to like do homework together. I love that one.

Dr. Emily Upshur (15:28):

When I discovered that, I was like, yessss.

Dr. Sarah Bren (15:30):

Yeah.

Dr. Emily Upshur (15:30):

It’s a great trick.

Dr. Sarah Bren (15:32):

There’s a lot of stuff that already is this. We just aren’t necessarily thinking of it that way. And so teaching your kids some of this stuff, like going to the homework help session in the 30 minutes before school starts might not be particularly fun, but when you explain to them, like help them notice it’s so much easier to get your homework done when everyone’s doing homework because then you don’t have FOMO. If you want to do homework after school when other kids are playing, it’s really not fun. But if everybody’s in the room doing homework, it’s like, “Oh good, we’re all doing this. Let’s bang it out. ” Helping kids get by and helping them understand why it’s helpful for them, especially older kids when we’re talking more about academics and like getting some of those like school based tasks practiced. It’s like…

Dr. Emily Upshur (16:21):

Well, what I love to do with my older kids, like my two older kids is, like let’s say it’s after dinner and there’s still several hours now when your kids are older before bed, I’ll say, “You know what? I have to do a few … Do you guys want to come work with me? ” Instead of like little kid land, I’m just going to sit and do some emails. Do you want to come sit in the dining room or living with me and we’ll just do a little work together. And it’s a nice transition for older kids with older families and you can, it doesn’t have to have to be like work. It could be paying your bills. It could be doing some camp signups, right? But it’s again, that modeling and that mirroring of doing that together. So it doesn’t have to be a huge lift back to that. I think it’s really important.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:07):

And I mean, I feel like I do that now with my younger kids that don’t have tons of homework where it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to read, you read, let’s all read a book.” This is just book time and for my kids that there must be a timer set because they need to know when book time will be over. But yeah, we set a timer and we pick up a book and we read and like that’s actually harder for me because I’m like, I really don’t want to read a book right now. I really want to get my work done and my work is on a tablet or a computer or a phone and I can’t because that doesn’t work. I have to actually like read a book. Maybe it’s good for me too.

Dr. Emily Upshur (17:45):

Well, maybe we need a reading body double for you. We’ll just do that too.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:48):

Yeah.

Dr. Emily Upshur (17:50):

A grown up.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:50):

I feel like you and I, Emily, we body double all the time when I’m like, we have a bunch of stuff to bang out for Upshur Brent, we usually just like set up a meeting and we pull out our computers and we just get work done. We’re not even working together. We’re just, like…

Dr. Emily Upshur (18:06):

It really helps. I mean, the data on body doubling says it boosts your productivity and you can do sort of have a more effective hour like that than you could on your own.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:16):

Absolutely.

Dr. Emily Upshur (18:17):

Thank you.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:19):

Just that just made me think of one other tiny little boost strategy if you’re going to do body doubling because if you were working on executive functioning skills, we’re holding that frame so we can hold their attention. But if you want to level it up at the beginning of it, if you are doing it with them to say, “Okay, I’m going to work on A, B and C. What are you going to work on?”

Dr. Emily Upshur (18:39):

Mhmm.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:39):

Because if you can give them some support in organizing their plan, it will also really make that time more efficient and like help them because you’re not just practicing holding the frame for them, you’re also now adding this extra layer of organizing them. And I think that kicks open the prefrontal cortex, it gets everything kind of turned on because even just saying, “I’m going to sequence my plan, first I do this, then I’ll do this, then I’ll do this. ” Now you’ve just lit up that prefrontal cortex.

Dr. Emily Upshur (19:19):

Love it. Primed it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:21):

All right. There’s your bonus. There’s your bonus for the episode. Thank you everyone for listening. Emily, thanks so much for coming on and talking about body doubling. Yeah. Talk to you soon.

Dr. Emily Upshur (19:34):

Bye.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:37):

Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.